a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a heat transfer labeling apparatus and a method of applying a heat transferable label to a hollow article. More particulally, this invention relates to such an apparatus and method wherein round or cylindrical articles such as bottles are decorated in a continuous operation.
b. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous decorating techniques are known in the art, some of which include the application of a label onto a hollow article to be decorated. One of the techniques which is desirable in this type of decorating is the usage of a heat transferable label which includes a decorative predetermined design thereon and may thus be transferred onto the article or container being decorated.
The heat transfer process permits for multicolored designs to be applied to a container in a single operation. The heat transfer process involves the use of a release-coated carrier upon which the design to be transferred is printed. The design is transferred from the web-like carrier to the container generally by using a combination of heat and pressure. The principal advantage of the heat transfer technique is that multicolored designs of an infinite variety may be applied to a container.
Because of the heat requirement associated with the release and application of the label from the web onto the container, it has been generally accepted practice to maintain the container in a stationary position, albeit rotatable in the instances of circular containers, during the decorating step. This has resulted in numerous prior art types of apparatus which employ intermittently moving mechanisms for conveying a container to a decorating station, engaging the container while a label is applied to the container, and then removing the container from the decorating station.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,239,569, 4,275,856 and 4,290,519 by the present inventor, apparatus are disclosed which overcome some of the disadvantages of the prior art described above. In these apparatus, the articles and the label carrying web travel in two substantially parallel planes at the same speed to allow the transfer of the label in motion. However, the articles decorated by these machines must have relatively flat label-carrying surfaces.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,935, also by the present inventor, discloses an apparatus in which bottles placed on a turret pass by a decorating station. At the station, labels from a web are transferred by a relatively flat and stationary presser to the bottles. In this machine, however, only a minor portion of the bottle surface facing the stationary presser can be used to hold a label and therefore the size of the label is limited. Thus, this machine could not generally be used to affix a label extending around substantially the entire circumference of the bottle.